DIGITAL LITERACY SKILLS AND THE CHALLENGE OF COLLABORATIVE CULTURE IN HIGHER EDUCATION: FROM INDIVIDUAL PSYCHOLOGICAL OWNERSHIP TO CO-OWNERSHIP

Development of digital literacy skills is necessary for effective functioning in digital learning and working environments. This paper explores the learning processes among students in a graduate-level course, based on development of digital literacy skills and experience in different types of collaboration. In this study we examine whether and how course’s learning processes helps to develop digital literacy skills of students and how collaboration culture is related to socio-emotional literacy and allows students dealing with individual ownership and developing co-ownership. The study was carried out in a qualitative paradigm and the content was analyzed according to the digital literacy skills and collaboration type's thesis. The finding shows that writing texts as an extension to the preexisting course materials, sharing information and thoughts and comments regarding learning outcomes created by peers, evoked the need to acquire new social norms of online interactions, which gradually allowed replacing the sense of ownership by co-ownership. The process was accompanied by students' understanding that collaboration culture has the power to enrich their understanding of the content and improve learning processes and outcomes.